My Review of Gordon Ramsay Masterclass

Masterclass.com offers a wide variety of online classes with experts in many fields. You want to improve your singing, take Christina Aguilera‘s class. Dustin Hoffman and Kevin Spacey teach acting while Diane Von Furstenberg teaches how to build a fashion brand. But there is plenty more. I went for Chef Gordon Ramsey. Incidentally, a great gift idea!

“Masterclass was created to give anyone the ability to gain wisdom and knowledge of the world’s best creators. The education platform offers affordable, engaging and inspirational online courses curated by world class instructors.”

I was not quite sure what to expect from Chef Gordon’s masterclass apart from his boisterous self and good food… and he did not disappoint. I recommend it to …… any confident beginner cook for sure and the curious like me.

It is easy enough to go online, pay for the class and have immediate access to your lessons, which you can follow at your own pace. The workbook compliments the class perfectly, it has the written recipes and some extra useful tips and links with how-to guides and checklists. You can login to a community page and participate in interactive assignments or lesson discussions. And Chef Gordon comments on the results of your assignments or answers your questions.

Chef Gordon takes you through 20 chapters well edited and beautifully shot.

He shares his professional journey, life advice and his philosophy all along as well… with a few “fuck me” here and there but mostly passion and obsession is shared!

Technical skills are step-by-step explained such as the perfect kitchen layout, knife skills and breaking down a whole chicken and whole fish. Real-time dish recipe tutorials such as: poached eggs, scrambled eggs, chicken supreme, salmon minestrone, and making pasta and lobster ravioli, on how to elevate them. And last but not least, he demystifies how to make the perfect Beef Wellington. The dish I truly LOVE but have never dared to try… I will give it a go now!

Now, what have I learned from this Masterclass?

From the man behind the stove: His obsession with cooking pushed him to achieve his dream: 3 Michelin stars, and then he had to let it go and turn his energy towards mentoring. Hearing how he struggles to keep a balance between work and life was revealing and personal. Hard work fulfills the dream but at what cost? Something I saw my dad 30 years ago struggle with as well.

From the techniques and skills: Great to see how to break down a chicken and salmon; and great to see how to chop awkward shaped vegetables. For me these segments didn’t teach me anything new but for a confident beginner this is probably very helpful. I made a note I need a small deboning knife with flexible blade and I need a new frying pan.

From the recipe tutorials:

Don’t season your eggs before they are cooked when making scrambled eggs.

Deglaze your pan twice with brandy before adding stock to reduce to make the base of the sauce.

… and how to store your scallops right side up!

From his words:

“Like speaking several languages improves your ability to communicate, learn more about spices and herbs to improve your pallet.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of the carcass”

“This is a class for foodies – watch and learn – and go and fucking cook”

I paid for one year access to Masterclass. Ramsay may be a good cook, but he has a filthy mouth. Within a few minutes of the Introduction video, he is using the “F-word” (more than once). This shows disrespect to those listening, some of whom may be children. I will not pay someone to cuss at me. Although many people have filthy mouths today, many other people do NOT. Masterclass needs to address this issue since several of the courses have this problem.